


Memories Will Burn You

by Pun



Category: Baseball RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-16
Updated: 2007-10-16
Packaged: 2017-10-14 15:14:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/150612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pun/pseuds/Pun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alex and Derek reminisce.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Memories Will Burn You

**Author's Note:**

> The events of this story are purely fictitious. None of this actually happened.Title taken from Billy Idol's "Sweet Sixteen." I cannot thank Lenore enough for the beta, and the encouragement, and her friendship.

Derek didn't like to think about the first time he'd kissed Alex. It was, after all, his favorite memory of him.

Derek’s heart had felt like it was pounding its way from his stomach to his throat with each beat, and Alex had been so freaked out he was trembling.

“Alex, if you don’t stop shaking I can’t kiss you,” Derek told him.

Alex had laughed at that. Derek felt the warm, moist rush of it across his face: a guffaw that made Alex’s shoulders shake harder momentarily, but left him more still in its wake so that Derek could lean in the rest of the way and press their mouths together.

After a few seconds Alex fumbled for him and laid unsteady fingertips against Derek’s cheek. Derek sighed against his lips some words of reassurance, and Alex had laughed again and come to him for the second kiss, opening his mouth to Derek’s tongue.

Derek’s whole body felt flushed, hot desire flooding his veins, and it was a struggle not to grab Alex’s hand and force it down to where he was so hard and aching.

But Derek was a perfect gentleman. He went no further than Alex allowed. All they did that night was kiss and touch, mostly on the face but sometimes on the neck or chest.

He had treated Alex so _carefully_ , and he laughed at himself now when he thought about where all his patience and consideration landed him. Alex had a way of appearing much more fragile than he really was. Derek fell for it even now, if he wasn’t paying attention.

*

Alex told Derek he loved him for the first time the night before Game 1 of the ’97 championships, months before they’d even kissed.

“You’re going to be amazing tomorrow,” Alex said. “I know it.”

Derek had laughed and said something typically Derek-like, confident and modest at the same time.

“I’m serious. If I can’t have it, I want you to have it. You’re playing for both of us.”

Derek said goodnight, but he didn’t hang up. He lingered on the other end of the line like he was waiting for Alex to say something more.

And Alex, obliging, speaking into the silence said, “Be amazing. I love you, man.” And then again without really thinking: “Good luck. I love you.”

After they’d hung up he sat there with the phone cradled in his lap for a long time just feeling the wonder and the truth of what he’d said. He was in love with Derek. He wanted Derek’s happiness as much as his own, more even, and it was the most astonishingly edifying emotion he’d ever felt.

If he concentrated, Alex could close his eyes and feel his chest swell with that emotion still. He treasured it as his happiest memory of Derek.

*

Not much changed between them at first, except that they started eating out less and ordering in more, hitting fewer clubs and renting more movies that they rarely saw the ends of.

There was a lot of dry humping and quick, rough hand jobs, frustrating for how good they were even with his pants halfway down his thighs, and Alex never really looking at him, keeping his eyes closed, keening in the back of his throat. Sometimes he’d call out Derek’s name, and Derek would nearly come just from the raw need of it.

It all reminded Derek of the first guy he’d ever fooled around with when he was only fourteen years old and still thought that keeping his clothes mostly on meant maybe he wouldn’t go to Hell.

He could have pushed harder for more, but in some ways the fact that Alex wasn’t totally comfortable with it made every time he gave it up that much hotter.

And besides, Derek was so freaking happy all the time. Constant euphoria was sufficient compensation for the odd case of blue balls.

*

The best part of being in love for Alex was how nothing seemed to touch him. He’d always had a problem with obsessing over the negative. He couldn’t keep himself from analyzing a botched play in his mind over and over, trying to dissect every detail of why he’d screwed up. A criticism from a coach could put him in a black mood for days as he kept on replaying it and poking at it from every angle.

When he was in love, though, his idle thoughts had Derek to occupy them instead, and he had Derek to talk to about his fears, and Derek to reassure him.

His world was so full of Derek that Derek became as natural and invisible to him as air, and so, he didn’t realize how suffocating life would be without him until he was gone.

*

Derek fucked Alex up the ass for the first time after the all-star game.

They stole touches the whole ride from the stadium to the hotel and Alex even pressed a quick kiss to Derek’s knuckles, heedless of the risk.

“Come back to my room?” Derek asked in the lobby, unaccountably nervous, watching Alex closely for his answer.

The smoky green of Alex’s eyes got swallowed up by his widening pupils, and Alex’s lips parted with his shallow breath. He nodded, and Derek knew right then and there that he would have him.

Derek didn’t recall much between that moment and the moment when he had Alex ready and kneeling in front of him, and he made the first press inside.

Alex’s knuckles were clenched pale against the headboard as Derek eased into him. Tears were leaking from the corners of his tightly closed eyes, but he kept saying, “Come on, baby. Come on,” in the same gut-deep voice he used to urge himself on before an at bat.

The sound of him, the basic, animal smell and taste of him and the pure ecstasy of finally getting inside of Alex consumed Derek, and he bucked and rode Alex hard, all of his plans to be gentle and slow in tatters.

  
*

Alex remembered waking up with their legs twined together and Derek’s arm across his back. Slowly he stirred, feeling the ache in his thighs, the sensitive spot on his shoulder where Derek had bitten him. He liked that he could still feel where Derek had been inside of him. He felt changed, claimed.

Derek’s eyes opened, and Alex looked away, suddenly remembering to be afraid of the consequences of what they’d done.

“Hey,” Derek said softly. When Alex kept his eyes focused on his lap he said it again and used his hand to turn Alex’s face to him.

Derek’s eyes were clear and gentle. There was nothing in them that hadn’t been there the night before.

“I love you,” Alex had said. “I love you so much,” and Derek had smiled and pulled him into a kiss that was so fierce it left him shaking.

Derek was still the best kisser that Alex had ever known, and there were days when he got caught up in wistful reminiscence and had trouble focusing on much other than Derek’s mouth. He would nearly cry when he reminded himself that he would never feel those lips again.

*

“But I love you,” Alex kept saying the day it ended. The tears were streaming down his face, and he looked and sounded to Derek like a child throwing a fit over a broken toy, uncomprehending of why his will alone wasn’t enough to mend it.

Alex must have told Derek he loved him a thousand times. By the end it had felt like just so many empty words, and Derek had felt spitefully justified in his own silence.

Even now Alex said it sometimes when he was particularly excited or drunk or tired. Derek only regretted that the time when he could have told Alex he loved him too was long past.

  
The End


End file.
